


We're Getting a Divorce, You Keep the Diner

by deciding



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Drama, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Secret Messages, The Black Hood, bughead - Freeform, it's a post-2x05 world and we're just living in it, no one actually gets divorced, southside serpents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 07:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12700185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deciding/pseuds/deciding
Summary: “So who keeps the diner?”“What?”“If we’re really doing this, if everything between us is through,” Jughead elaborated with his jaw clenched, “whose territory is Pop Tate’s?”--Betty is forced to look Jughead in the eye and make sure that he knows exactly what her message is, so she does just that.





	We're Getting a Divorce, You Keep the Diner

That damn ringtone. It used to make Betty think of teenage girl things. _Hearts! Unicorns! Rainbows!_ It used to make her think of banana splits that were, conventionally, split with her sister Polly. It used to make her think of when she’d first made the River Vixens, how much pep she had in every stride, with her new best friend Veronica in tow. It used to make her think of Jughead; the way he put his hand on her left shoulder, the way they’d swayed together to Josie  & the Pussycats on the night that they saved Pop’s, the way they both had a penchant for holding each other’s faces when they kissed.

Okay, so she still thought of those things. But no longer with fond nostalgia. Now, her sister, her friend, her love – they were her losses. 

When she heard that damn ringtone, her mind was a vacuum of just two questions. _What now? Who next?_

Betty heard it everywhere. She heard it as the soundtrack to her nightmares, in the halls of Riverdale High when the bell rang, and even as the purr of motorcycle engines whenever a Serpent peeled out of the parking lot at Pop’s. But none of that compared to really hearing it, in the stillness of the night in her bedroom when the tinny voice on the other end of the line would demand something new. When she would have to rip out someone else’s heart and drive over it with an ice cream truck.

She didn’t know what was less daunting, dreaming about the phone calls or actually getting them. The answer she got—neither—came halfway through a fit of crying, buried underneath floral covers and wearing Jughead’s gray cable-knit sweater. When she got the next call, she was holding her stuffed cat, Caramel, up to her lips and between her teeth so that her parents down the hall didn’t her her wail, or worse, scream.

Betty didn’t take the chance of more than one God-damned _Lollipop_ blaring out before she swiped at the screen and held the phone to her ear.

“Betty,” the voice on the other end cut into her chest. “Did you lie to me?”

“No!” she croaked in terror. “I never lied!”

“Nick St. Clair wasn’t at the Five Seasons. He checked out.”

She already knew that. She went to the Five Seasons, to the room Nick stayed in, to warn him or…or something. She wasn’t sure what she would have said to him if she’d caught him there, but she’d gone anyway. He was a piece of shit for what he tried to do to Cheryl, and probably other girls where he was from, but there was a difference between a pig like that getting what he deserved and _murder_. Betty had given his name up, so if anything happened to him, didn’t that make her complicit in attempted murder?

But the door to the room was open when she arrived. His things—all of the St. Clairs’ things—were gone. She suspected that they’d checked out. The Black Hood confirmed it. Did he blame her for being too late?

“That—that’s not my fault,” Betty felt the tremor of her voice in her wrists, in her fingers digging into her palms, in her knees shaking against the mattress. “I can’t control where other people go.”

For an extended pause, all she heard was breathing; her own quick shallow breaths, and the eerie calm of The Black Hood’s on the other end of the line.

“No, I suppose you can’t,” his answer came, and although it was in agreeance, it still sent a chill down Betty’s spine. “But you’re going to make this up to me.”

The questions alarmed in her head again. _What now? Who next?_

“I don’t know anyone else that meets your criteria,” Betty blubbered out in a panic. “I swear I don’t.”

“Easy there, Betty,” her torturer responded. “You don’t even know what I was going to ask of you.”

Betty gasped for air as fresh tears rolled down her face. “What do you want?”

“You told me you ended it with your trailer trash boyfriend.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“I already did that. I told you. I did everything you asked me to.” Her heart was still in a million pieces over hurting Jughead, over hurting him to protect him.

“When? How?” Questions, followed by another statement. “You haven’t seen him since you met him at the diner.”

Betty immediately got up from the bed and crossed the room to her desk. Her pen was still on top of the notepad where she’d left it. She’d split the page into two halves, one column with phrases that the Black Hood had uttered to her, his criteria for his targets, and one column with places where he’d definitely seen her. In the second column, she’d written _walk to school_ and _Blue & Gold office_—places where she’d talked to Archie about him and as a result gotten herself in the Nick St. Clair Russian Roulette mess.

She jotted down _diner_ as she answered, “I had Archie tell Jughead. Pl—please, you have to understand. I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I saw him. But I cut him out. He told Archie that he got the message.”

“It seems like Archie Andrews is starting to become a real problem,” the Black Hood sneered. “Is Archie going to _continue_ to be a problem?”

“No,” Betty answered firmly, desperately. “He was just following orders. I haven’t even talked to him since school yesterday. He doesn’t know anything.” 

Archie was the only person left in Betty’s corner. She couldn’t afford to lose him, too.

“See to it that he doesn’t.”

“Just tell me what you want,” Betty demanded.

“I want you to see Jughead.”

 _“What?”_  

“Tell him to his face that it’s over, Betty,” the voice demanded in return. “I want you to look him in the eye and make sure he knows _exactly_ what your message is.”

A sob escaped Betty’s throat. “Why are you punishing me?”

“Like I said, you’re just making it up to me,” he answered. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.” It was a whispered promise that dared to get caught in her throat.

“Good.” He ended the conversation with one last thinly veiled threat, “I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to your best friend.”

She wasn’t even sure who he was talking about anymore—Veronica or Jughead or Archie. It didn’t matter anyway. Not a single one of them was left unscathed.

 

\-----

 

She hadn’t gotten to ask the Black Hood a question during their last call because she was making up for her fault, not carrying out a new task. Those were his rules. If she could’ve asked a question, it most definitely would not have been _how do you expect me to see Jughead after I already broke up with him?_ That was what she wanted to ask though. It was something she’d ask Polly if she weren’t worried that contacting Polly would put her and her babies in danger. It was advice she could have used from Veronica, if Veronica were speaking to her. It was what she would tell Archie if she wasn’t so terrified that he’d be taken away from her, too.

It kept her up, mind racing and hands clenched. But it was Jughead himself who would provide the answer.

When Betty arrived at school the following Monday, she was immediately cornered by Archie and Reggie. They wanted her to have a look under the hood of Reggie’s car, which they explained was to be used in a drag race against the south side’s lesser-known gang, the Ghoulies.

“The Ghoulies are going down,” Reggie boasted with his chest puffed out and hands moving along for emphasis. “They might be _from_ the hood, but there’s no way anyone on that side of town is packing as much heat _under_ their hood.”

Betty stifled a grimace. Only Reggie would be able to make a ‘hood’ joke in bad taste when there was a murderer hidden in plain view in Riverdale who called himself the Black Hood.

Reggie half-realized his poor choice at attempted humor and offered an apology to Betty, the person whose help he needed. “No offense. I know your boy is over there now.”

Archie glanced at Betty with remorse and began, “Actually, Reg—”

“Jughead and I broke up,” Betty interrupted.

She knew that the Black Hood had watched her at school. If he was watching and listening, she wanted him to hear her loud and clear when she said it. She reminded herself over and over again why she’d done it and why she had to say it out loud bitterly: to protect Jughead.

Reggie didn’t make any pointed remarks or tell her that she was always welcome to explore _The Book of Reg_. Instead, he shook his head and hummed under his breath. “Well this is gonna be awkward.” 

Betty shrugged her shoulders and lowered her chin in question. “Why’s that?”

Archie shifted his feet and readjusted his backpack around his shoulders. He sighed and cast his best puppy dog look at her before the words left his mouth, “Jughead will be in the driver’s seat.”

 

\-----

 

Betty sat staring at the layout for the next issue of _The Blue & Gold_ on the ancient computer in front of her in the school newspaper office, the only computer that could be used to format and collate the pages properly. She was so tired of thinking of the right ways for self-sabotage. At the get together where she blew up at Veronica, while everyone was doing Jingle Jangle, she’d sat brewing over the right words to use, to hit Veronica right where it hurt.

 _You and I are the same_ , the Black Hood had told her.

Betty feared that all of her thinking and plotting for the perfect demise of her relationships made him right. She was good at it, too. She didn’t need anyone else’s help to sabotage herself—she was sufficient at it all on her own. The Black Hood claimed he was doing right by Riverdale by attempting the lives of those he deemed to be sinners. Betty _knew_ she was doing right, protecting the lives of her sister and her friends, by burning her emotional ties to ash.

She hadn’t seen Jughead in a week. Soon she’d walk down the hall to the auto shop, where Reggie had left his car before football practice, to meet him. Archie promised they would be there after the Bulldogs were done for the day, but until then it’d be just the two of them. She expected that Jughead would be distant and sunken into himself. Maybe a few sarcastic remarks. She didn’t think insults hurled her way were out of the question either, because he was at his lowest and she’d put him there. Or maybe he’d ignore her completely. He would protect himself from her and how she’d hurt him.

Betty unzipped her backpack and began gathering her belongings in size order. First her Pre-Calculus textbook, then her Chemistry binder and spiral notebooks. She grouped the loose leaves of paper on the desk together and tucked them into the flap of her homework folder. When she lifted the folder from the surface, the item that was revealed underneath it caused her pause. It was the book she’d checked out at the library with Jughead to decipher the Black Hood’s message, _The Nancy Drew Secret-Code Activity Book_. Amid all of the self-sabotage he’d had her do, Betty had forgotten to return it to the library.

Betty picked up the book and thumbed over its spine, remembering how she’d come to the realization of where she knew the symbols from. _Nancy Drew meets Girl with the Dragon Tattoo_ , Jughead had said, and it was the light that set her off.

Looking at the book cover, she came to a new realization as she heard Jughead’s words in her head over the white noise. Even after she’d hurt him, Jughead was still her clarity in the eye of the storm. The rest of Betty’s stuff was dropped into her backpack haphazardly. She barely managed to shut off the lights and lock the door behind her before she was racing down the hall toward the auto shop.

If the Black Hood said that they were the same, then fine, they were the same. He’d sent her a cipher that only she could figure out. If they were the same, then she had the power in her to send her own coded message to her own target. Jughead.

 _I want you to look him in the eye and make sure he knows exactly what your message is_ , the Black Hood had urged. She decided to do just that. Those were his orders, after all. She would just have to outsmart him right under his nose.

 

\-----

 

The snake eyes on the back of Jughead’s jacket pierced back at Betty as she stepped through the threshold of the auto shop. He’d definitely come armed in his own way. Wearing the Serpent on his back inside the walls of Riverdale High was a weapon in and of itself.

“Should you be wearing that around these parts?” Betty asked softly.

Jughead’s head lifted and he turned around. Before he could say anything, a gasp left Betty’s lips and her seaglass eyes went wide to doe-like proportions.

“Juggie,” she couldn’t help the affectionate way his name tumbled out of her mouth. “What happened to you?”

His lip was busted. An eye was blackened. His cheek was crimsoned with a bruise. There were small cuts on his nose, his forehead, and his chin.

Jughead merely flicked his fingers against the front of the leather. “It’s official.”

It was official. He was a Southside Serpent. Betty had heard as much from Archie, who’d gone over to FP’s trailer in the middle of some initiation ritual. But seeing the aftermath made it all the more real.

“I thought you said your dad’s way wasn’t your own,” she uttered.

On Jughead’s birthday, he’d ranted about being a weird kid who didn’t fit in, trying to push her away before she could do what he believed was the inevitable and push him away. Standing in front of her, battered and bruised, with the jacket that fit him like a glove, he looked anything but happy, unconfortamble in his own skin. His new found snakeskin.

“And I thought you said you supported whatever I needed to explore,” Jughead retorted in a disgusted tone.

 _Touché_. Jughead’s walls were up. Maybe getting her message across wouldn’t be so easy.

Jughead shrugged off his jacket and tossed it off to the side. He’d come prepared. Rather than one of his many ‘S’ t-shirts, he wore a mechanic’s work shirt, likely something of FP’s from the trailer, Betty decided, over a white undershirt. She wanted to ask Jughead jokingly if he was going to dye his hair blond _à la_ Jackson Teller now that he was both in a motorcycle gang and a less than mediocre mechanic, but given the very real life situation of dueling gangs and the Black Hood threatening lives in their small town, she didn’t think he’d find the parallels very funny.

Betty’s own attire was reflective of her mood every morning that she’d woken up since the Black Hood had begun contacting her. She felt like crap so she’d put on old overalls and a plain lilac t-shirt, one she took from Polly’s closet, and then finished off the look with a top-knot bun, taking a break from the very uniconic low ponytails she’d put her hair in for the last few days. She was done with keeping up with appearances to please her mother, to please everyone else, for the time being. Her focus was on the phone calls and protecting the people she cared about.

“I hope…” Betty’s voice cracked for the first time. “I hope they took care of you after whatever it was you had to do to prove yourself. I hope they’re taking care of you now.”

“Just Toni,” Jughead said shortly. “She kissed me.”

Betty’s heart took a nosedive down to her stomach. _Toni kissed him. Toni kissed him. Toni kissed him._

On the verge of new tears, Betty choked out, “How’d that go?” 

She wasn’t sure if the hurt she felt over his haste confession was as bad as the hurt she’d sent to him. She was angry and jealous, even more so because he’d done nothing wrong. She was the one who sent Archie to end things for her. As far as _an eye for an eye_ went, Jughead wasn’t even close to even with her.

“Like a snake bit me.” Jughead chose his words carefully when he replied. “Numbing.”

Betty nodded. Internally, she sighed in relief. He didn’t like kissing Toni, which meant he wouldn’t want to do it again.

“Why are you racing Reggie’s car, Jug?”

“The Serpents and Archie’s pack of vigilantes have found a common enemy in the Ghoulies,” Jughead stated simply as he took a seat on the left edge of the car. “But this race is between the Serpents and Ghoulies. Clearly, Reggie is not a Serpent.”

Betty unhooked the lamp from the top of the hood interior and held it out to Jughead. She was ready to check out the car and begin conveying her message. “Hold the light.”

Wordlessly, Jughead took the lamp and did as he was told, hovering over the area she began checking out. He ignored the heat that emanated from the lamp as well as the heat caused by the tension between them.

They worked in silence for a while until Jughead couldn’t stand it anymore, just like when he’d spoken up about _Fahrenheit 451_ after Sweet Pea up and left English class.

“So who keeps the diner?”

“What?”

“If we’re really doing this, if everything between us is through,” Jughead elaborated with his jaw clenched, “whose territory is Pop Tate’s?”

“Are you serious right now, Jughead?”

“Damn right I am,” Jughead said emphatically. “Pop’s was our place. So is it mine, because it’s the last place on this side of town that hasn’t turned its back on me? Or is it yours because you saved it?”

“This isn’t a divorce and the diner isn’t our child that we’re battling for full custody over.” Betty shook her head as she inspected the fluid levels of Reggie’s car. “We can share it.” 

“I don’t want to dampen the mood every time we run into each other,” Jughead disagreed. “Just say the word and I won’t ever set foot in there again.”

Pop’s without Jughead?

The whole reason she’d gotten so worked up, so indignant over the Chock’lit Shoppe almost shutting down was because of him. Because of _them_ , really. Pop’s symbolized more than a nice childhood and meeting new friends. Jughead was right about that. Pop’s was their safe haven. It was where they’d sat in a booth, on the night he turned sixteen, and been completely vulnerable to each other for the first time. It was where she found him after the big blow up at Homecoming, after FP’s arrest. It was where, just a week ago, they held hands for the last time and he talked about running away on his motorcycle and a single tear rolled down her face when she mentioned Romeo and Juliet.

No. She’d already resolved that. It _wouldn’t_ be the last time. And they wouldn’t be a couple of star-crossed dead teenagers. The magnificent dreamers that they were, they wouldn’t fall down by the wayside. They would have their own happily ever after. They would walk it back.

“I saved the diner for you.” Betty looked up from the car and looked into Jughead’s steely blue eyes. “You keep it.”

She wanted to scream _I did it for us_ and _I love you_ and a million different other phrases of affection. She had to assume the Black Hood was watching or listening, or both. In fact, she hoped he was. She never wanted to have the same conversation with Jughead ever again. Betty could only hope that what she was saying in her eyes and in her body language told him of how she really felt. Most of all she hoped Jughead was listening with more than just his ears. 

Jughead hooked the lamp back onto the hood of the car and his gaze met hers again. He still looked at her with those heart eyes, like she hung the moon and was the most precious thing he’d ever seen in his life. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, and came out and asked the questions that were a continous downpour in his mind, “Was what Archie said true? You wanted to break up for weeks?”

Betty knew what the answer had to be. Just a simple ‘yes’. But that short answer seemed so much more cruel than what Archie had told Jughead. She didn’t bother telling Archie that his delivery was cruel when they talked about it after the fact. Betty knew him better than he knew himself, and Archie had acted the way he would if the scenario was repeated a hundred times over. She didn’t blame him for his delivery, either, because she couldn’t bare the thought of being the one to tell Jughead face to face that it was over, so she sent Archie—an act just slightly less awful. It couldn’t have been any worse for either of her fellow musketeers.

Archie always let his emotions get the best of him. He didn’t sit in silence and think things through deliberately like Betty (or the Black Hood), and yet he managed to give the message to Jughead in the worst way possible anyway. He hadn’t meant for the words to come out the way they did. He’d even mulled over what Betty asked him to do all day and dreaded it. But when he got to the trailer and saw Jughead with the Serpents, saw Jughead joining the Serpents, he was overcome. What he said was fueled by how angry and how scared he was for Jughead. 

“Betty?” Jughead broke her from her thoughts and repeated, “Is it true?”

She couldn’t help the tears that glassed over her eyes and threatened to fall. She believed in Jughead. She believed in _them_. So she had to believe that he could read her cues and understand what she really meant.

“Yes,” she finally whispered.

The mark of the familiar scowl between Jughead’s eyebrows showed. He took a step closer toward her and she sidestepped over a toolbox to back away. They were less than an arm’s length away from each other so she had to act fast. It was too late when she realized he’d backed her into a corner and she was out of space.

“Jug,” she spoke his name in warning and despair.

It was _all_ she could say in warning. She still didn’t know where the Black Hood had his eyes and ears. She could send Jughead secret glances and put her faith in him to pick up on them, but getting close to him was a bad idea, lest she reach out for him and touch him. She didn’t want to make the mistake of letting all her emotions bubble up to the surface.

But Betty lost that war when Jughead reached behind her and settled his hand on the back of her arm. She trembled at the contact, needing his comfort and needing him to get as far away from her as possible all the same.

Jughead’s eyes were slightly narrowed—having one black eye helped that along—and his words were accusatory, “I _don’t_ believe you.”

For the first time, Betty was glad that he could tell she was lying to him. It even felt like a victory.

“Juggie.” Betty couldn’t help the tears that fell from her eyes as she struggled to keep herself in check. “Let go.”

It was the final warning she could give him, telling him to walk away but silently pleading for him to understand and hold her in his heart until it was safe. Those words were the opposite of what he’d told her not so long ago in _The Blue & Gold_ office when he’d told her how strong she was and hugged her against his gray cable-knit sweater, the same one she’d been wearing to bed since she was forced to break up with him.

Jughead let go of her arm and took a step back. The look he gave her was sullen but his answer was the same as hers had been back then, “I won’t.”

That was all she needed to know that her message had been delivered in her silent implications. She was right. They could walk it back later. And they would.

 

\-----

 

Months later, Betty’s lungs burned as she ran to where she knew Jughead would be. No longer was there a threat on her family or her friends or her love. She’d done it. She caught the Black Hood. As soon as the door of Sheriff Keller’s squad car shut with him inside, Betty had taken off running.

She slowed to a brisk walk as she rounded the final corner. Her chest was tight from the sprint as much as it was from the anticipation. She’d kept Jughead at a distance for weeks on end, which wasn’t hard given his association with the Serpents. But in their ‘separation agreement’, she’d given up Pop’s. She’d given it to him and vowed to avoid it. That was why she knew he’d be there.

Betty pulled the hair tie from her low ponytail and shook out her hair. She combed the blonde tresses with her fingers and re-did the ponytail tight and higher up on her head, where it belonged. Even that was muscle memory that she’d missed.

When the red-orange neon glow of the diner sign came into view against the night sky, Betty did a quick scan of the windows. She searched for any glimpse of leather or a gray beanie. She was disappointed when she found neither because she could _always_ spot Jughead from a booth inside Pop’s if he was there. Her feet crunched over loose gravel on the parking lot pavement until she came to a stop. 

Perhaps, she thought, she’d gotten overconfident. It was cocky to think that he spent all his free time at a north side diner when he could just go to the Whyte Wyrm, where he was Serpent royalty. Betty’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Well, she’d run all the way over. At least she could ask Pop Tate when the last time he’d seen Jughead was. She could get the vanilla milkshake she’d been craving for months to go and head over to Sunnyside. 

The chime of the bell over the door rang out from inside the diner as someone opened the door. It was that sound that caused Betty to snap her head up and kept her frozen in place. There he was. Leather jacket and crown beanie. ‘S’ shirt and flannel tied aroud his waist. Jughead.

She saw him before he saw her. He took the steps of the landing in one hop and pulled the keys to his motorcycle out of his pocket. Jughead glanced up briefly, absentmindedly, before doing a double take. He took a few strides toward Betty and looked at her, really looked at her, and he knew.

His keys fell to the pavement.

Betty couldn’t help the sob that tore from her throat and racked her shoulders as she closed the distance between them. She launched herself into his chest so suddenly that he had to take a step back and bend at the knees to steady them both. He held her tight, no space between them, his cheek pressed against the top of her head. Time slowed as she cried against his neck. If it was minutes or hours, neither of them knew or cared. The patrons who entered and exited the diner had to walk around them, too caught up in their moment. 

No words were said between them until the tears stopped flowing and the sobs ebbed into hiccups and ragged breathing. Finally, Betty didn’t have to speak in code or deliver a silent message. She could be honest. She’d been hell bent on deliverance of all the privileges of being with him again for far too long.

Betty leaned back to look him in the eye. The lapels of Jughead’s jacket were twisted up in her hands. His arms were securely fastened around her waist and their foreheads nearly touched.

“Juggie.” His name was a whisper that left her lips and ghosted against his own.

“Betts.”

She kissed him softly, just once, and told him what she needed from him. “Don’t let go.”

Betty pulled him into another hug and breathed him in without waiting for him to respond. She already knew what he’d say. 

Jughead cradled the back of her head and nuzzled against her neck. When his reply came, it was his answer and hers, and it was what it’d always been and always would be.

“I won’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> Shout-out to the lovely Diokomen for the ice cream truck! That detail and others are covered in the [Story Notes](http://jerepars.tumblr.com/post/167407043115/were-getting-a-divorce-you-keep-the-diner-story) on my [tumblr](http://jerepars.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Thanks for reading! Any feedback is always appreciated. <3


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